Standby (2016) - Film Analysis

Standby tells the story of a blooming friendship between Gary (Andrew Paul) and Jenny (Alexa Morden), two Police officers forced to share the front seat of a patrol car. The audience gets to witness the ups and downs of their relationship through glimpses of their everyday routine.

This 5 minute short film directed by Charlotte Regan has been critically acclaimed, resulting in its multiple screenings in festivals like the Toronto International and the London Film Festivals and its recent BAFTA award nomination. In such limited time, Regan succeeds in telling a comedic but emotional story carried by the believability of the two main characters.

To analyse this movie, we should focus in its narrative, as it represents the film’s core. Starting up with the structure of the story, we can classify this narrative as linear as it follows Bordwell and Thompson’s (1997) principle of being “a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space”. The film makes this even more obvious through a very smart use of cuts that allow the audience to jump though the key moments in the development of the bond between the characters. Following Tvetzan Tordorov’s (1977) break down of this kind of narrative, we can recognise 5 different stages. The film starts with an established equilibrium, which in this case this is portrayed by Gary’s solo cop practice. This reality is disrupted by the arrival of a new character, Jenny, who makes a change in Gary’s routine. First, he seems sceptical about his new colleague (Recognition stage), but Jenny’s attempts of bonding with him finally result in a friendship between the two characters, which establishes a new equilibrium. What is also interesting is that in this case we find another disruption of this harmony when Jenny applies for a promotion, which is also solved through the Recognition and Attempt stages that make Gary and Jenny come to peace, acquiring a new equilibrium once again. Oddly enough, this film does not choose to end there. Instead, Regan decided to bring Gary back to his original reality at the beginning of the short film, only to be disrupted by the appearance of a new colleague, making the movie come full circle. The choice of ending the film in distress instead of a traditional solved ending is nothing but an interesting one, as it offers a more creative approach and leaves the audience with the desire to know more about what happens next.

Moving on to another of the film’s key aspects, we have the script. The brilliance of the piece resides in the minimum dialogue needed to tell the story, which is carried by the performances of the two main actors, Andrew Paul and Alexa Morden. The spontaneity of the dialogue just adds more realism to the story, making it more believable and easier for the audience to emphasise with. The script itself contains all the ingredients to reach its audience on every level, whether its sensual, through visual or audible stimuli; emotional, as we develop a connection to the characters as the go through a broad range of emotions and situations; or intellectual, as we go on the same trust journey as Gary, the main character in the film.

This leads the analysis to the most important point in the film, the characters. There is no doubt this is, above all a character driven piece. As it was already hinted above, the film tells the story through Gary’s eyes. This makes the audience join him in his at first reticent bonding experience with Jenny. Regan confesses “dads that struggle to verbalise their love but show it so clearly in their subtle actions” inspired her approach to the relationship between the two characters. “Every character in the film is based on someone I know or have met”, she admits, “the grandma in the back is based on my nan Helen who has more one liners than most comedians, and the rapper Tyler is inspired by all the rappers I’ve done music videos for over the past 6 years”. Indeed, the truth behind these characters shows up in the final project, which radiates freshness and spontaneity, and gives the piece great credibility.

Some other aspects of the film that are also worth mention are the edit and cinematography. In this case of study both of them are very closely intertwined as the choice of having the camera blocked in the same position throughout the whole film not only affects the feel of the story, but also the edit and the rhythm. The choice of that static angle in the car works as a window for the audience to get an insight of the routine of the characters. How does this relate to the edit? Because the story is about repetition and everyday situations, the pace of the edit is fast, with shots that don’t surpass 5 seconds for most of the film. This allows the filmmakers to show only a thread of glimpses of their story without becoming repetitious or tedious. Moreover, the composition of the shot is also interesting, as we can immediately recognise the distance between the two characters from the beginning as they both are very careful to stay in their own side of the frame. However, as the film progresses and their bond becomes stronger, we can slowly see how that barrier between them shrinks as they start interacting with each other and surpassing the limits of their own original space.

All in all, what makes this short film worthy of a BAFTA nomination? It is not one, but a combination of factors that make this a successful movie. Originality, clear conflict and focus, great talent are key, but in the end it is its visual and storyline simplicity that make this piece stand out from the rest. Standby is something for filmmakers to be to aspire to as the fact that it was shot over two days with just 10 people makes proves that you do not need a great budget to make a great film.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. (1997). Film Art: An Introduction. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

charlottereganfilm. (2017). charlottereganfilm. [online] Available at: https://www.charlottereganfilm.com/ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2017].

Dawkins, S. and Wynd, I. (2010). Video Production, Putting Theory Into Practice. 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.240-286.

Munday, R. (2017). Standy by Charlotte Regan | Bafta nominated short film. [online] Short of the Week. Available at: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2017/03/12/standby/ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2017].

Standby. (2016). [film] United Kingdom: Charlotte Regan.

TIFF. (2017). Standby. [online] Available at: http://www.tiff.net/films/standby/ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2017].